Have you ever set a goal for yourself? Not just a New Year’s resolution, but a real, practical goal with a specific time frame. What happened? Did you stay committed to your goal? Did you accomplish it?

I used to make resolutions each new year. I would write about how I wanted to lose weight, write a book, or keep my house cleaner. Those things rarely came to pass.

Then, a few years ago, I started setting goals instead. Instead of saying to myself, “This year, I’d like to keep my house cleaner,” instead, I wrote down what I intended to do, and by when, such as: “By February 28th my house will be completely organized.” This really made a big difference!

I made a few other changes as well. Instead of just creating resolutions at the beginning of the year, and then not looking at them again until at least six months later (or perhaps not until the next January), I printed them out attractively and hung them on my refrigerator, where I reviewed them daily. I also made a conscious effort to plan how I would manage to achieve my goals.

Confession:I’m the worst at consistency. I’m the WORST at commitment. I’m terrified to make goals because I know I’m just terrible at following through.Click to keep reading...

Even for the most organized of people, paperwork can still be a tricky thing to keep tidy. Why is this? I think it’s because there’s an uncontrolled input! Other stuff stays tidy if you leave it alone and don’t buy more, but paperwork keeps flowing into your life whether you like it or not. If you “do nothing” everything else stays put, but if you “do nothing” with your paperwork, it turns into a disaster!

I’ve seen many beautiful paperwork organization systems that involve color-coded files, multiple steps to keep everything in the correct order of importance, and so on. Those are very nice, but they aren’t quite the right fit for me. I need my system to be super simple, or else I won’t keep up with it when life gets busy.

My paperwork organization system is focused around keeping only the limited number of essentials, keeping items only as long as they are needed, and getting the rest out of my house ASAP.

Today's post will be pretty short! At first I was feeling a little bad about this, and trying to come up with more things/chores to fill it up with --- but then I decided, "You know what, it's okay for it to be short. I don't do very many chores in the morning, and that's something I feel good GREAT about!"

Despite what you may think, I don't love doing chores. I really enjoy the results of them, and I'm pleased to do the work to get those results. I'm especially pleased because the routines that I've developed to keep my house constantly clean allow me to get my chores done each day in an extremely minimal amount of time, and take very little effort. It's so much easier and more fun to do chores in a clean house than in a messy one!